Latest news with #Kentuckian
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
First medical cannabis safety compliance facility breaks ground in KY
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) – Team Kentucky announced it broke ground on the first medical cannabis safety compliance facility in the state. Officials say State38 LLC, with a roughly $1 million investment, will employ around a dozen Kentuckians. The new safety compliance facility will be one of seven in the state dedicated to ensuring the safety and quality of medical cannabis products. Owensboro Health commits $200K to community projects 'Team Kentucky is dedicated to ensuring every Kentuckian with a qualifying condition has safe access to quality medical cannabis,' said Gov. Andy Beshear. 'I'm excited to see this new industry take root here in Graves County, because I believe health care is a basic human right.' Officials say on April 17, 2024, Gov. Beshear signed House Bill 829 into law, which moved up the timeline for medical cannabis licensing in Kentucky by six months. The Kentucky Office of Medical Cannabis began accepting applications from prospective businesses on July 1, 2024. Officials with Gov. Beshear's office say last month, Team Kentucky broke ground on the first medical cannabis business in the state, Centaurus Farms KY LLC, a Tier II cultivator in Wayne County. A ribbon-cutting was also held for a Tier III cultivator facility in Clark County managed by Cresco Labs. Two arrested after Hopkins County chase 'I'm proud to see the progress that's been made so far, and I look forward to the day when we say that all our safety compliance facilities, cultivators and dispensaries are open for business,' added Gov. Beshear. Gov. Beshear says on March 31, 2023, Gov. Beshear signed Senate Bill 47 into law, legalizing medical cannabis for Kentuckians beginning January 1, 2025. To date, more than 15,000 Kentuckians have received a written certification, and over 10,000 have successfully applied for and received a medical cannabis card. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Post
25-05-2025
- New York Post
2nd crypto bigwig in SoHo torture case to surrender, sources say
A Swiss crypto millionaire sought for questioning in the gruesome torture of an Italian trader in SoHo will surrender to the NYPD this week, sources said Sunday — as a priest sprinkled holy water on the property. The Euro exec became a person of interest in the case after the arrest of Kentucky crypto king John Woeltz on Friday for allegedly holding wealthy trader Michael Vanlentino Teofrasto Carturan inside a Prince Street apartment and torturing him for his Bitcoin password, authorities said. Woeltz and his assistant, 24-year-old Beatrice Folchi, were charged in the case, but Folchi was later released when Manhattan prosecutors declined to file charges pending further investigation. 5 John Woeltz is charged with kidnapping and torturing a wealthy Italian crypto trader inside a SoHo apartment. David Burns The second sought exec's lawyers are now arranging for his own surrender, law-enforcement sources told The Post. The man is co-founder of a Swiss trading firm. Meanwhile, a priest at the Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, a Catholic church across the street from the alleged SoHo torture pad, came out Sunday to pour holy water on the steps of the property. 'Given what's been happening in there, the things they're saying happened in there, I thought it was a good idea,' the priest told The Post. The torture case rattled others in the quiet Lower Manhattan neighborhood, too. 'I still can't believe it,' said a neighbor who asked to be identified only as Samba. 'It doesn't make any sense that you could keep somebody hostage for a week and torture them in this neighborhood. 5 The victim was allegedly held for more than a week in this SoHo apartment and brutally tortured. Paul Martinka 5 Italian beauty Beatrice Folchi, Woeltz's assistant, was charged with kidnapping but later released by prosecutors. Khristina Narizhnaya/NY Post 'It's a very quiet street. At night especially it's very quite around here,' the local said. 'You would think that you would hear something. You would think that the people from the church here would have heard something.' Police said Carturan, who is reportedly a trader from Turin worth $30 million, was lured to the apartment and brutalized for his password. He was allegedly tied to a chair, tazed with his feet in a bucket of water, pistol-whipped and had had his legs and arms cut with a chainsaw during the weeks-long ordeal. Sources said he was also urinated on and dangled from the top of a staircase in the home. The battered captive was finally able to escape Friday when his captors were distracted. Woeltz was arraigned Saturday on kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, assault and criminal possession of a weapon charges and ordered held without bail. 5 Woeltz was arraigned on kidnapping, assault and imprisonment charges and ordered held without bail Saturday. Michael Nagle 5 Folchi told The Post she was 'not arrested' and would only speak through a lawyer. Khristina Narizhnaya/NY Post Sources said the wealthy Kentuckian owns a private jet and a chopper, as well a 150-acre farm in the Bluegrass State valued at more than $860,000, all part of his lucrative crypto empire. Folchi was charged with kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment before she was cut loose. She told The Post on Saturday that she was 'not arrested' and would only speak through a lawyer. Sources said Carturan was being treated at Bellevue Hospital.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
One House Republican opposed Trump on key votes for years and survived. Can Thomas Massie do it again?
President Donald Trump often seems like the sun around which other Republicans orbit, setting their direction and movements — and, every so often, slingshotting one out of his solar system when they displease him. But one GOP lawmaker has consistently found his own political gravity, surviving clash after clash against the party's standard bearer: Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Massie was one of the few Republicans staunchly opposed to the Republican Party's sweeping bill to enact key pieces of Trump's agenda this year, such as extending the 2017 tax cuts and boosting spending for immigration enforcement. And he has not shied away from voicing his criticism what Trump has dubbed his 'one big beautiful bill,' which, in Massie's words, amounts to a 'ticking debt bomb,' represents 'Biden-level spending and increased deficits,' and contains a concession he said would 'primarily benefit limousine liberals in blue states.' Trump, never shy with words, has blasted Massie as a 'grandstander' who 'should be voted out of office' — criticism Massie has pointed to in fundraising appeals for his own campaign. It's not a new dynamic for the Kentuckian, one of the rare Republicans who has found himself at odds with Trump on multiple occasions but has lived to tell the tale. The question is whether he can do it again in 2026, and whether the tension evaporates as it has before or if Trump actually takes the step of backing a primary challenger this time. 'That's a step up,' Massie said Tuesday, speaking about Trump's threats. 'In 2020, he wanted me thrown out of the GOP, so losing a seat wouldn't be as bad as being thrown out, would it?' 'I think that's hyperbole on his part. I'm not worried about it,' Massie continued. Massie, a staunch libertarian who came to Washington as the tea party took over the House Republican conference in the early 2010s, has indeed found himself crosswise with Trump over the years. He blasted early attempts by Republicans to repeal Obamacare in 2017. He sided with Democrats in an attempt to overturn Trump's emergency declaration on the southern border in 2019. And his opposition to the 2020 Covid relief package during the early days of the pandemic led to Trump labeling him a 'third rate Grandstander' on social media and encouraging a primary challenge against him. Massie has long observed that he and Trump aren't coming from the same ideological roots. In 2017, he told the Washington Examiner that Trump's election had caused him to re-evaluate his assumptions about what motivated Republican voters during and after the tea party era. 'After some soul searching I realized when they voted for Rand [Paul] and Ron [Paul] and me in these primaries, they weren't voting for libertarian ideas — they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race,' Massie said. 'And Donald Trump won best in class, as we had up until he came along.' Massie revisited the quote in a brief interview with NBC News last year on the sidelines of a presidential campaign event for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Iowa. Massie was one of the few members of Congress to endorse a Trump challenger in the 2024 primaries, and he withheld his endorsement of Trump in the general election until the race's final days. 'I used to think I wanted Congress to have more crazy candidates,' Massie said last year. 'And I have decided that is not the case. And I do think there's a backlash. People are looking for somebody that's just a solid conservative. I think we're tired of crazy, and the voters are too.' 'In the race for crazy, I used to be able to lead the lap sometimes,' Massie added with a smile. 'Now I can't even stay on the lead lap.' Despite the high-profile dissents and social media confrontations, while Trump previously mused about finding a primary opponent to topple Massie, no serious one has materialized. Massie cruised to victory in his primary months after Trump's 2020 threat, and he even won Trump's endorsement ahead of his 2022 primary. To hear Massie describe it, he's weathered it fine. Other Republicans have lost primaries or decided to retire, sometimes amid tanking poll numbers, in the face of Trump's wrath. Not him. 'I've got the Trump antibodies,' Massie told Fox News in 2024 when asked if he'd face political retribution for not endorsing Trump's primary bid. He added, 'Trump came at me and I won my re-election, so I'm not worried about it.' He currently faces only one Republican challenger, Nicole Lee Ethington, a nurse who has criticized Massie on social media for his 'no' vote on the recent legislation. But it remains to be seen how hard Trump or his allies might try to go after Massie in next year's GOP primary. The Kentucky Republican eclipsed 75% of the vote in each of his last three primaries. Still, Massie's libertarian politics mean he's regularly found himself in the minority among congressional Republicans, particularly on the issues of spending, America's military involvement abroad and the government's use of surveillance at home. Once again, he's found himself in a familiar place in Trump's Republican Party. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
1 in 5 Kentucky kids faces hunger. Congress is considering a plan that would make it worse.
When children don't have consistent access to meals, it impacts their development, their education and their future. (Stock photo by Inti St. Clair/Getty Photos) In Kentucky more than 753,000 residents, or 1 in 6, face hunger. They often don't know where and when their next meal will be. That sobering statistic is felt daily across the commonwealth — from families forced to choose between groceries and rent to schools struggling to meet students' basic needs. Food banks and our partners across the state are doing all we can to provide millions of meals annually and coordinate critical emergency support — but we can't do it alone, and we certainly can't do it with policy that sends us backward. But that's just what's happening, and hungry Kentuckians will pay the price. The U.S. House Committee on Agriculture has proposed a plan that would quietly shift the burden and worsen the problem. If passed, the Kentucky budget would be responsible for funding over $150 million annually by 2028 just to maintain current benefit levels. With food insecurity projected to rise, that cost will likely increase even more. We're sure federal and state governments will jostle for who is to blame, but the bottom line is simple: Fewer Kentuckians will be able to eat. And that's why we're pushing back. The proposal under consideration would throw the entire SNAP system off, and there's no solution being offered. SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) works because it can scale up quickly when people are struggling, like after a natural disaster, such as recent tornadoes. States just don't have the resources to handle that kind of surge. Keeping SNAP federally funded is the only way to ensure it's there when people really need it. Charitable food assistance steps in where other support falls short, but it's not enough. For every meal provided by the charitable food system, SNAP delivers nine. That ratio matters. Reducing access to SNAP won't just stretch food banks thinner, it will stretch family budgets to the breaking point. Hunger is not just about food; it's about health, learning and opportunity. When children don't have consistent access to meals, it impacts their development, their education and their future. In Kentucky, 1 in 5 kids faces hunger. When adults don't have food, they can't be expected to perform their best at their job. The consequences ripple far beyond the dinner table. We already know what works. The community eligibility provision helps high-poverty schools serve free meals to all students. Summer EBT provides grocery assistance when school is out. SNAP helps families put food on the table every night. These aren't luxuries — they're lifelines. And they're part of our shared responsibility to ensure no Kentuckian goes hungry. Kentucky's food banks are committed to doing our part. But systemic hunger cannot be solved through charity alone. We need policies that protect families and uphold the principle that access to food is a basic human right. Anyone can experience hunger. A job loss, medical emergency or child-care crisis can leave a family facing food insecurity. These programs offer dignity, consistency and hope when it matters most. And no matter our political beliefs, we should agree on this: No legislation should determine who gets to eat and who doesn't. Congress can act to protect and strengthen the nutrition programs that keep families afloat and give children a fair shot. We can work together to build a future where no one in Kentucky goes hungry. Melissa McDonald is executive director of Feeding Kentucky, a statewide network of seven Kentucky food banks and their partners.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
1 in 5 Kentucky kids faces hunger. Congress is considering a plan that would make it worse.
When children don't have consistent access to meals, it impacts their development, their education and their future. (Stock photo by Inti St. Clair/Getty Photos) In Kentucky more than 753,000 residents, or 1 in 6, face hunger. They often don't know where and when their next meal will be. That sobering statistic is felt daily across the commonwealth — from families forced to choose between groceries and rent to schools struggling to meet students' basic needs. Food banks and our partners across the state are doing all we can to provide millions of meals annually and coordinate critical emergency support — but we can't do it alone, and we certainly can't do it with policy that sends us backward. But that's just what's happening, and hungry Kentuckians will pay the price. The U.S. House Committee on Agriculture has proposed a plan that would quietly shift the burden and worsen the problem. If passed, the Kentucky budget would be responsible for funding over $150 million annually by 2028 just to maintain current benefit levels. With food insecurity projected to rise, that cost will likely increase even more. We're sure federal and state governments will jostle for who is to blame, but the bottom line is simple: Fewer Kentuckians will be able to eat. And that's why we're pushing back. The proposal under consideration would throw the entire SNAP system off, and there's no solution being offered. SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) works because it can scale up quickly when people are struggling, like after a natural disaster, such as recent tornadoes. States just don't have the resources to handle that kind of surge. Keeping SNAP federally funded is the only way to ensure it's there when people really need it. Charitable food assistance steps in where other support falls short, but it's not enough. For every meal provided by the charitable food system, SNAP delivers nine. That ratio matters. Reducing access to SNAP won't just stretch food banks thinner, it will stretch family budgets to the breaking point. Hunger is not just about food; it's about health, learning and opportunity. When children don't have consistent access to meals, it impacts their development, their education and their future. In Kentucky, 1 in 5 kids faces hunger. When adults don't have food, they can't be expected to perform their best at their job. The consequences ripple far beyond the dinner table. We already know what works. The community eligibility provision helps high-poverty schools serve free meals to all students. Summer EBT provides grocery assistance when school is out. SNAP helps families put food on the table every night. These aren't luxuries — they're lifelines. And they're part of our shared responsibility to ensure no Kentuckian goes hungry. Kentucky's food banks are committed to doing our part. But systemic hunger cannot be solved through charity alone. We need policies that protect families and uphold the principle that access to food is a basic human right. Anyone can experience hunger. A job loss, medical emergency or child-care crisis can leave a family facing food insecurity. These programs offer dignity, consistency and hope when it matters most. And no matter our political beliefs, we should agree on this: No legislation should determine who gets to eat and who doesn't. Congress can act to protect and strengthen the nutrition programs that keep families afloat and give children a fair shot. We can work together to build a future where no one in Kentucky goes hungry. Melissa McDonald is executive director of Feeding Kentucky, a statewide network of seven Kentucky food banks and their partners.
